APhA, Cardinal Health Foundation join forces to curb Rx abuse

SEATTLE — The American Pharmacists Association has teamed up with the Cardinal Health Foundation to fight against prescription drug abuse through several initiatives.

With funding support from the Cardinal Health Foundation, APhA members will take an active role in preventing the abuse and misuse of prescription medications, including the following initiatives:

APhA will encourage its professional and student members to utilize two toolkits, which can be accessed at CardinalHealth.com/GenerationRx, that contain talking points, presentation materials and tips to make it time-efficient and easy for pharmacists and others to discuss the issue of prescription drug abuse in a variety of environments;

A competition among APhA's Academy of Student Pharmacist chapters, whereby student members utilized Cardinal Health's GenerationRx toolkit to raise awareness of prescription drug abuse in their communities. Five student chapters recently were recognized for their efforts;

The APhA GenerationRx Award of Excellence, endowed by the Cardinal Health Foundation, which each year will recognize one pharmacist for outstanding efforts in prescription medication abuse prevention; and

The APhA will develop a GenerationRx Preceptor program, which will engage pharmacy educators in efforts to raise awareness of the dangers of prescription drug abuse.

“We believe that as trusted healthcare experts, pharmacists and student pharmacists can play an important role in helping parents, educators, community leaders and teens better understand the dangers of prescription drug abuse,” said Jessica Lineberger, manager of the Cardinal Health Foundation. “We look forward to partnering with [the] APhA to engage [its] members in the fight to save thousands of lives through prescription drug abuse prevention.”